Readers' comments

Isn't it amazing the conversatives rail against Europe and the middle-East in the same breath, while embracing social policies embraced in the Muslim middle-east that held back millions of their citizens while denouncing the "socialist" European policies that uplifted millions of their citizens?

You may like to call it Judeo-Christian, but there is no such thing. It is Abrahamic or bust. Islam has as much in common with Christianity as Judaism has in common with Christianity. Socially, legally, and theologically.

Here in Dallas, I frequently drive by an outfit with a hard-to-see, nondescript hand-stenciled sign out front, "Northpark Medical Group." It struck me as odd that a doctor's office had such a small, unprofessional sign, until one day I drove by and saw a bunch of protesters out front. Turns out that the NMG does abortions, and on the days it actually does them, people line up out front trying to discourage the women from going through with it.

Part of me was sympathetic to the protesters - this is clearly a matter of conscience to them, and I have to admire them for getting off their butts to do try to stop something they think is evil. But part of me was sympathetic to the women going into the clinic. I imagine that for many this was a very difficult decision, and that for every ten or so passing through the door, there were no doubt a few with heartwrenching stories about how they wound up needing the clinic's services.

Although abortion is legal, it's very hard to get one in Dallas, particularly if you're poor or low-income. Only a few doctors do abortions, and they are hassled in public - I found out that a member of our church performed abortions when we left church and had to pass through a gantlet of protesters calling out the doctor as a "baby-killer." I admired the doctor for the courage of his convictions, and for his grace in the face of the protesters.

If supporters of Planned Parenthood "bullied" SGKF with a bloodless, confrontation-less and civil two-day PR campaign, then there is no word in the English language for what right-to-lifers do to women seeking abortions and doctors who perform them.

Abortion is a controversial topic. It's controversial for Komen to take the side of Planned Parenthood, which performs thousands of abortions each day and zero mammograms, rather than maintain a politically neutral position of just not funding them.

Instead, when Komen tried to take this reasonably neutral position Planned Parenthood smeared the organization and made the issue explosive to protect their cash flow.

...and only 4% of those exams were funded by Komen. Moreover, Komen has denied the link between abortion and breast cancer despite the fact that among seven risk factors, abortion is "best predictor of breast cancer." http://www.jpands.org/vol12no3/carroll.pdf

At the end of the day, if abortion is murder, it doesn't matter how many breast exams they do. Planned Parenthood is toxic for a non-profit wishing to stay politically neutral. Once you're in bed with them, it's very difficult to escape because Planned Parenthood will drag you through the mud if you try.

The argument that "the money only amounts to x", strikes me as a little like PP saying that abortions are only x proportion of their expenditures. It seems to me to be a distraction. If it's so little, why is it so important to pro-life folk when so little goes to PP?

1) The study you cite was apparently funded by LIFE, which is an (as you might expect) anti-abortion organization. Conflict of interest much?

2) That same study was done by the director of PAPRI, whose website appears to show that that it is an organization searching for a link between breast cancer and abortion, judging from the fact that the only studies they cite on site are ones searching for a link between breast cancer and abortion. Not exactly an objective researcher.

Lastly, I suppose I should note, one of those seven risk factors you mention is that hormonal birth control is a "known" inducer of breast cancer, which is followed by several pages of not backing up this quite-incendiary claim. I'd say this study is nothing more than a crock.

Don't take it personally. (1) M.S. does reply to other comments, (2) RR posts very regularly and for a longtime, so it's reasonable for M.S. to have developed a relationship, and (3) the blogger shouldn't dominate the comment thread. M.S. has to pick and choose.

In fact, M.S. probably replies to more comments than any other blogger on The Economist. He reads what you say, so at least you aren't talking into the void.

The telling point in the Komen-PP brouhaha was not Komen's decision. It was the unlooked-for incandesence of the pro-abortion crowd.

The Komen donation to PP was $700,000. Since PP has an annual budget of $1bn, this amounted to no more than a rounding-off error. Yet, the whole business became frontpage news for the NYT, Washington Post and other MSM along with the lead item for the American TV networks. Why?

A good working definition of "hysteria" is a disproportionate emotional response to stimulus. One should not have a nervous break-down over a hangnail; nor should one get panties in a knot over a funding change of 7/100 of 1% of an operating budget. Yet, the panties ended up very knotted indeed.

The media response to this insignficant item was, indeed, astounding! It was the talk of America for a week and the subject of stentorian editorials in everything from the NYT to the Podunk Daily Blat.

Something else is at work here -- this is about more than a trivial amount of money. The rage displayed by the pro-abortion lobby was entirely unwarranted by the event.

Once the hysteria fades, more sober souls -- psychologists, mostly -- may begin to analyze just what happened during this circus. The Princess Di Carnival of Grief revealed something in British society a generation ago and this American pout-party seems similarly revealing.

The whole business was silly, baffling and -- to repeat -- hysterical (by at least one definition.) What is up with the pro-abortion mentality if such a minor difference of opinion provokes such incandescent rage? This is a possile sign of several things -- mental balance and proportion are not among them.

I'm not entirely comfortable with PP and abortion. Is there a non-abortion providing equivalent to planned parenthood? Someplace that does provide contraception, education, STD treatments, breast exams and education, and has made access to the poor part of its mission. I might donate to that.

You can try that Catholic hospital if you want contraceptives, but you might not be successful... Isn't that what Catholic bishops and leaders are blustering about these days? Would you consider that an incandescent reaction?

Perhaps, like the civil rights movement, abortion is a controversial issue that shouldn't be controversial at all. In that case you can accuse groups that try to avoid taking sides of "reprehensible" cowardice. But that's the argument you have to make. If the pro-life movement is despicable, then what Komen did is despicable. If it isn't, then what Komen did may have been tactically foolish but the motive was perfectly understandable. Wonderful blog, but this is a very dishonest post.

Your comment is a more dishonest representation of the situation than the post. The issue was never about whether abortion is controversial or the pro-life movement despicable, the issue was about whether a Congressional inquiry with no basis behind it justifies defunding an organization that you had supported for years under the rationale that *the organization* has suddenly become controversial.

What M.S. has specifically called despicable is the act of manufacturing controversy where none existed and without any basis behind it and then using the presence of that newly existing fake controversy to smear the accused and drive people away from them.

Now THERE's manufactured controversy. Imagine you're pro-life and sit on the board of a non-profit that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion. You know that some people won't donate to your organization because it helps out Planned Parenthood. What do you do?

So it's controversial to stop working with PP but not controversial to work with PP?

@ RR: "Imagine you're pro-life and sit on the board of a non-profit that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion. You know that some people won't donate to your organization because it helps out Planned Parenthood. What do you do?"

If we are going to venture on imaginative journeys that have nothing to do with what actually happened, then I would rather imagine that I have a pony.

@ RR: "So it's controversial to stop working with PP but not controversial to work with PP?"

That is almost, but not entirely, completely unlike the point that I was making.

"Imagine you're pro-life and sit on the board of a non-profit that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion. You know that some people won't donate to your organization because it helps out Planned Parenthood."

Imagine if you sit on a board of a non-profit whose mission it is to protect and promote women's health. Your organization makes grants to another women's health organization to provide breast cancer screenings. Someone points out that you might be able to get more money if you cut off this other women's health organization and use a politically ginned up controversy as a cover story, even though the other organization serves the people you also claim to serve.

Imagine how badly your image will be damaged once people understand that you chose the lure of more money over the health of people.

The Economist seems to imply that Karen Handel is still speaking on behalf of the Susan G Komen Foundation (SGKF) - "If this was in fact the strategic concern ... as a result of the cut-off, the Susan G. Komen Foundation is now itself..."

Rather, the Economist (or at least MS) is saying that, if Ms Handel's version is correct, the action takes was spectacularly counter-productive. That is, that the action had results exactly opposite to what Ms Handel (not necessarily the Komen Foundation) says was the intent.

"...the Susan G. Komen Foundation is now itself precisely the sort of "controversial" organisation that other donors will refuse to work with"
- implies sgkf will be affected because of its actions, which were in fact perpetrated by an individual.

If late-term fetuses could vote and talk and demonstrate, we would be seeing a second Civil Rights movement. It's rather unnerving that some people would support abortion under any circumstances - not that the American doctors have been indulging in such a practice.

What a contemptuous comparison. And to think that the readers thought you had a point.

Not a fully developed human being is okay to 'abort'? Where does that take us next then? Do we get to kill not-fully functional humans such as the disabled?

I truly, truly despair at this state of affairs. We have not replaced religion with rationalism; we have only replaced one with another. No one seems to be able to take a step back and think logically on all that they believe in. Disgusting.

If late term fetuses could vote and talk and demonstrate, they wouldnt be late-term fetuses. Just saying. And whats with the use of the word 'indulge' anyway? I doubt even a fraction of medical professionals would look forward to such a thing, even if it were legal (late term abortions, that is.

I find it curious that so many of the um, "proLife" crowd here in the U.S. have no qualms about U.S. military actions that continue to cause deaths, miscariages, birth defects & cancer. ProLife, what a joke. I would have a bit more respect for them if they spoke up for abused children in the U.S. The U.S. has the highest or second highest rate of child abuse & child deaths in the developed world. Why is there no outrage about this?

I was just pleased to see how quickly Planned Parenthood reaped the rewards of Komen's stupidity. I know several people who were inspired to set up recurring monthly donations to PP when this all came to light.

There was already enough controversy about Komen's pink-washing - not to mention how donations were actually being used - I have a feeling this particular mess is going to make it very hard for them to recover.

The Media’s Abortion Blinders"Conservative complaints about media bias are sometimes overdrawn. But on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudices are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable. In many newsrooms and television studios across the country, Planned Parenthood is regarded as the equivalent of, well, the Komen foundation: an apolitical, high-minded and humanitarian institution whose work no rational person — and certainly no self-respecting woman — could possibly question or oppose. But of course millions of Americans — including, yes, millions of American women — do oppose Planned Parenthood."George Will:"The American left cares about ending wars and they care about poverty and they care about the environment, but they really care about — when they’re not perfunctory — is when you touch abortions. And historians will marvel that American liberalism in the first part of the 21st century is defined as defense of abortion."

Shorter whoever wrote that first thing: The media forced millions of Americans to stop giving money to the Komen foundation as part of its nefarious plot to...{...?...]...

Shorter George Will: It is wrong to defend the legality of abortion because it shows you don't care enough about the environment, poverty and ending wars. That those of us who do not care about the environment or poverty and support starting wars seem to care so much about other people's blastocytes and fetuses is in no way odd.

First is Douthat. A nefarious plot? Just a bias that tends to portray pro-lifers as anti-women despite the fact that half of all women are pro-life. A bias that portrays Planned Parenthood as apolitical when they actively oppose even the most modest abortion restrictions that enjoy overwhelming public support. A bias that portrays Planned Parenthood as mammogram providers when in fact they don't provide mammograms but do perform over 300,000 abortions a year. A bias that reports that abortions account for only 3% of visits (technically true but misleading since many more visits are for consultations that will end in abortion on subsequent visits) but doesn't report that 30-40% of PP's revenue comes from abortions.

As for the Will quote, it's one thing to defend the legality of abortion, but of all the issues that galvanize, the enthusiasm for abortion rights is bizarre to say the least if you take a step back from it all.

While the groups you mention are tiny minorities, the group I mention, i.e., those enthusiastic about abortion rights encompasses virtually the entire left and that makes it exceptionally bizarre. Step back and think about it. The left said, "if you aren't going to support access to abortions, we don't want your help with breast cancer research."

Step back and think about it. The right said, "if you're going to support access to abortions we're not going to help you with breast cancer."

It's ridiculous. But that's a big point of this article. Now there is controversy where none existed before about issues that are only tangentially related (Women's health). Now each side gets to point at the other and say how ridiculous the other is being for bringing politics into it.

I am not sure that being pro-life means being anti-abortion *in absolute terms*. Likewise, I am not sure that being pro-choice means being enthusiastic about abortion *in absolute terms*.

Check that - I am pretty sure that it is not the case at all, actually. The range of individual cases considered makes it virtually impossible to have a definite, one-size-fits-all position, let alone a consensual nationwide policy about abortion.

I am positive that you will find millions of self-described "pro-life" people who would have serious (and justified) misgivings about a situation where a pregnancy might kill the mother. In parallel, I do not doubt that there are millions of self-described "pro-choice" people who would be rightly revulsed by the (ab)use of abortion after two emancipated, intelligent adults preferred not to use a condom during a one-night stand.

I actually know quite a few people who could fit just as easily in both categories, starting with yours truly.

What this debate has managed to do is to polarise the political spectrum even more (quite an accomplishment in itself considering the present sorry state of public discourse) and to undermine the remnants of nuance, balance, shades of grey and acceptance of deeply personal (and, over time, evolving) views about a remarkably complex topic.

@ RR: "As for the Will quote, it's one thing to defend the legality of abortion, but of all the issues that galvanize, the enthusiasm for abortion rights is bizarre to say the least if you take a step back from it all."

Yeah, what could possibly be more bizarre than people getting worked up when others threaten to take their rights away? Especially when the right concerns something completely trivial like one's ability to control what happens to one's own body.

@ RR: "The left will not associate with opponents of PP even on matters completely unrelated to abortion."

Indeed, because given that PP does nothing but abortion, that is exactly equivalent to your original characterization of the left that "if you aren't going to support access to abortions, we don't want your help with breast cancer research."

Of course, given that PP does nothing but abortion, it makes one wonder why Komen was giving them any money in the first place...

Oh you did say "enthusiastic"
And what do you mean removed "rare" from their official platform? Are they now busing people over to abortion-clinics? They are just protesting any efforts to take away a woman's right to get an abortion. In exactly the same way the right protests any effort to dilute gun-rights.
A true constitutionalist can't support one and oppose the other.

The DNC's official platform was changed in 2008 from "Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare" to "The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion."

The right to bear arms is explicitly stated in the Constitution. The right to an abortion is not and for nearly 200 years nobody thought it was.

I think rare is implied, isn't it? Unless you think there are hordes of women who enjoy aborting their fetuses.

The right to bear arms is explicitly stated in the Constitution in the context of well-regulated militia. Stress on well-regulated. None of the debates we have about gun-control talk about what the heck is a well-regulated militia.

The right to abortion is explicitly stated in the Roe v Wade ruling by the Supreme Court, which is explicitly empowered in the Constitution (Article 3 Section 2) to interpret the Constitution.

So how can you be for one part of the Constitution (2nd amendment) as interpreted by the Court, and be against another part of the Constitution (Roe v Wade relying upon the 14th amendment and articulating the limitations of the 9th amendement) as interpreted by the Court?

Highest abortion/birth ratio in the United States: Washington, D.C.
(265 abortions for every 100 live births).

Number of Americans of all ages and races
murdered daily by handguns – 28
Number of American babies of all races
killed every day by abortion – 3,425
Ratio of babies killed by abortion to people killed by handguns:
122.3 to 1

Your comment is what in American baseball is called "a hanging curve ball." It is supposed to be a devastating pitch but if done poorly the ball heads into the stands.

Where is the logical connection between bringing a child into the world and not caring about the environment, poverty -- AND being one of those who "support starting wars?"

In my lifetime the population of the USA more than doubled and the air and water have never been cleaner. China's population quadrupled during the same perioda and today the Chinese live better than at anytime in their 3000 year history.

As for starting wars,very few of these are waged by fetuses or infants. Which conflicts did these start that escaped the history books.

Your "argument" (I am in a generous mood!) consists of yelling, "Hey, look over there!" when someone points out that it is,after all, that abortion is about death. Death, not in a future environment, from hypothetical poverty or from some fetus-launched war. It is death here, now and it is permanent and it kills a creature whose DNA is, except in its smallest particulars, identical to what you carry in your cell nuclei.

Most pro-abortionists I know are aware that they advocate something low and dirty. They will thus never address the moral problem killing is. Instead, they will throw dust in one's eyes (Hey, Look over there!) to try and divert attention.

If you want to kill unborn children in the womb, for crying out loud just say, "I want to kill unborn children in the womb!" Stand up -- be proud of what you advocate! Don't slink away with a snarl over your shoulder about war and the environment that is no more sophisticated a retort than "So's your Old Man!"